The Dust and the Roar Read online

  “You need something, Seed?”

  “Talking here with Is.” His pointed gaze went back to Isi, and she took in a tight breath. “It’s been a while,” he drawled.

  My jaw stiffened. Was he one of her former one night stands?

  “We’ve got nothing to talk about,” Isi said, her fingers digging into my side. “I need a drink.”

  “Aw, baby, you haven’t told your boyfriend?” Claw burst into a roll of dark laughter, a hand hitching onto his hip. A hand covered in a web of ugly scars.

  “I don’t waste my time on you, on the past,” Isi said, her voice flat, cold.

  No. No. No. My breath hardened in my chest, my bones became steel. I fucking knew what was coming. I steered Isi away, but he edged toward us. “Get out of our way, man.”

  Claw’s hand jabbed the air in Isi’s direction. “That’s my ol’ lady you got there.” Vig and the other Seed sidled next to Claw, forming a wall.

  My hand curled deeper into her shoulder. “No, she isn’t. Fuck off. Get out of our way.”

  Claw’s focus remained on Isi, and bile churned in my gut, simmered up my throat at his searing, possessive look, at his knowledge of her. He gestured at me. “Baby, you gave up the real deal for this?” Vig and the other Seed laughed.

  I lunged at him. Yelling and shouts rang in my ears as my fist met his face. My bros grabbed me, pulling me off him, pulling me back.

  “Oh, ho-ho!” Claw rubbed the side of his jaw. His eyes glinted at her, and a flame blazed inside me. A rancid smirk edged over his mouth, and Vig and his other bro moved in even closer. He wanted attention from us, from the crowd, from Isi most of all.

  Claw dipped his head. “Sweetheart—”

  I shoved forward. “Don’t you fucking dare. You don’t get to talk to her like that. Ever. You don’t get to talk to her at all ever again.”

  “Hey, hey!” came shouts and rapid scuffling and stumbling around us.

  “No foul!” He raised his thick arms up in the air. “Just wanted to tell Isi how much I enjoyed the show. Your singing is … real sweet, Songbird.” He drew out the word.

  “Don’t call me that,” Isi’s voice simmered behind me.

  My hand cuffed his throat. “What the fuck did I just say?” His brothers pressed around me, grunts and threats exploded. More shoves, more shouts.

  “We gonna do this here?” Claw grit out.

  “Why the fuck not?” I spat back.

  “Stop this shit now! Move it on out of here!” rose Biff’s voice from somewhere beyond the immediate crowd around Claw and me.

  Claw shoved at me, leaning over me toward Isi. “You tell that brother of yours I need to see him. I’m not playing games. I want what’s mine.”

  Isi jerked forward on a grunt, smack into Claw’s face. “You stay away from him! You have no business talking to him! None at all!”

  “That so?” Claw’s eyes widened.

  “Is—” I pulled on her.

  “Keep away from him, goddammit!” she said. “You hear me? Keep the hell away!”

  “Sweet Songbird, I spotted him here when you were singing, then he phht disappeared like he always does.” Claw’s lips drew back in a snarl. “He owes me, Is, and I’m collecting.”

  Isi’s arms flailed, her punches falling on Claw.

  “Hey now!” Claw laughed, taking her hits, dodging her hits. “Crazy bitch!”

  Willy grabbed Isi by the waist, lifting her up and away, and my fist crashed into Claw’s face. He flew backward, sprawling to the floor. I lunged at him and punched him again. And again. My arm had a life of its own … the sound of him calling Isi by that nickname was the gasoline fueling my fire.

  A wave of humans yelped, pushed closer, jumped out of the way. Demon Seeds threw punches, and we punched back.

  “That’s it! Stop it! Get the fuck out!” Biff’s voice roared.

  Someone pulled me off Claw who was bleeding, head rolling, my hands stained with his muck. He laughed, and I kicked at his middle with my heavy boot, and a howl tore from him. Mick pulled me away from him.

  “I’m done with y’all!” Biff shouted. “It’s not even summer yet! What the fuck’s gonna happen then?” Biff stood on a chair. “No more colors in this saloon ever again! You want to come here and drink, you enter without your colors, or you do NOT get in. You all got that?”

  “All right, Biff. All right!” said Mick.

  The Demon Seeds got Claw off the floor and dragged him and themselves out of Dead Ringer’s. Flexing my throbbing fingers, I shook out my blood-stained hand as we stalked out of the saloon. Something tugged on my arm, a slide of warmth in my hand.

  Isi.

  We strode outside together. She had explaining to do.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  “Don’t you need to go back with the band?” I pushed through the noisy, smoky crowd in the parking lot. I wanted to get on my bike, I wanted to get the fuck out of there.

  Isi picked up her pace, keeping up with me. “We need to talk.”

  “Yeah, you need to talk.” I flexed my throbbing hand. “But right now, that’s the last thing I want to do,” I said on a growl. I didn’t want to hear about her and that fucker.

  “Wreck! Come on!”

  Shouts and the booming rumble of tens of bikes filled the lot, exhaust thickening the air. I got on my bike and finally lifted my heavy eyes to hers.

  She shifted her weight. “Baby, please.”

  I started my engine in reply, the thunder reverberating between us.

  Her jaw set, she jumped on the back of my bike and pressed against me. “Let me take you somewhere special. No talking. Just riding.”

  “Isi—”

  “Go to Hot Springs,” she shouted.

  “Hot Springs?”

  “Yes, I’ll show you where exactly.”

  I gestured at Willy that we were taking off on our own, and he lifted his chin at me.

  The sky was rippling in rich purples and pinks. Sunset was happening. I twisted my throttle, and we took off.

  * * *

  “Why are we here?” I asked.

  We’d pulled up at the edge of a dirt road overlooking a rocky canyon. Uneven grasses brushed against our legs. The wind had kicked up and lashed at us, and it felt good over my hot skin.

  “This is the place where—” She froze, her eyes widening.

  I heard it first. The mounting rumble. A thunder. Tremors rose in my legs, my gut. A herd of animals tore through the brush—manes rippling, long legs striding, pounding, a billow of dust in their wake.

  “Wild mustangs,” she said.

  My chest tightened, sending my heart up my throat like when I was a kid and had first seen a herd of buffalo lumber across the hills to the road next to our car. Wonder, awe, fear. The only other time I’d felt like this was when that herd of choppers had filled the sky and descended over me to get my wounded and dead out of the jungle after the rockets had taken care of the guerrillas who’d surprised us.

  Extraordinary.

  These animals weren’t regular, ordinary horses. Because of the harshness of the range here, they were harsh too—strong, small creatures thriving wild and free.

  “Holy shit…” dropped out of my mouth.

  Isi’s body pressed against mine. “This is the area they’re talking about making a sanctuary for the mustangs. They need protecting.”

  “So all that negative shit they say about the wild horses destroying the rangelands and polluting the watering holes. That’s bull crap, right?”

  “That’s all bullshit created by those greedy government assholes.”

  The last of the herd galloped past. Isi threw up her arms and jumped, hollering to the sky, hair flying.

  And they were gone.

  “You know, even if you caught one, you wouldn’t be able to tame it,” she said, her hair tousled and windblown in the dust.

  I laced our fingers together. “I wouldn’t want to tame a wild mustang.” I wouldn’t want to tame you, Isadora Dil
lon.

  She only grinned at me, squeezing my fingers.

  We were alone in the rippling grasses in that strange, delicate time between the final haze of light and the early creep of darkness, the edges of both blending in the sky into a richer, darker purpley-pink blue. I glanced at her. She sucked in air deep into her lungs as she stared up at the sky. Always grateful for her now, always wondering what was next. Always in a state of wonder. This is where she belonged, out here in an ordinary grassy field simmering in the sun and heat or in winter, glittering over banks of white snow. Always the thunder of the wild horses roaring in her ears.

  Isi stuck in that crumbling old five and dime selling shit, straightening shelves, literally stuck in a bygone era that was no more and never would be again was all wrong. She needed to be here. Out here, soul shining, yelling, running in the waves of dirt and dust that to her were everyday magic.

  “The sky’s on fire,” she murmured.

  “You were on fire tonight, Is.”

  “Oh, it felt so good, Wreck. Even though I’ve been doing this for a while now, it still surprises me that I no longer have to sing a song or two and run. That I don’t have to leave because that’s how it used to be. A secret wish. From singing on my bed with my hairbrush as a microphone, and my brothers yelling at me to shut up, taking a few singing lessons after school, all the way to right here, right now, this moment with you.”

  “You made it happen, Is.”

  “Not without you. Your support and your belief in me have been at the core of this. I’m so grateful,” she whispered. “When I was in high school, I’d sneak out, go to parties and sometimes sing with a band. They’d want me to be lead, but I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t be counted on because if my parents found out, I’d be done for.”

  “Why were your parents so against it?”

  “My parents had a whole list of reasons, among my favorites were—it isn’t seemly, all those kids are into drugs, just you and all those boys?— that sort of thing. So if I did agree to a performance, I’d do one or two songs with a couple of rehearsals after school. Always lying, so many lies. I’m going to Katie’s house to study for a test or I’m trying out for the track team. Oh, I hated all the lying and sneaking around, I really did, but I refused to stop or to feel guilty about it, because it was my dream, and I’d do whatever it took to make that dream happen because nothing else measured up. When James died, so much broke and lay broken, and we couldn’t pick up the pieces.”

  “No more broken pieces, baby.”

  “No, not anymore.” She gently swung our hands. “When it’s my time to start singing, when the notes rise and I’m about to jump in, that moment—suddenly everything—and I mean everything—fits into place, and it’s a place I’m addicted to. Big, pure, full of every color—colors I don’t even know exist and don’t have words to describe. It’s intense and scary, but it’s where everything is true. When I sing, I’m the me I was meant to be, I’m the me I’ve been reaching for so long. You were so right. I wouldn’t be feeling all this, wouldn’t be right here if it wasn’t for you.”

  “You’re the one who practices with the guys ’til you get it right. Who gets up on that stage and delivers to all those people.”

  She slid her hand around my arm. “My senior year in high school, when you and I first met at Dead Ringers, I started doing singing contests at bars that were nearby. I could get away with it because I was tall for my age. A couple of my girlfriends knew, Georgia, and Leo too. They’d always cover for me with my parents. Even from my husband.”

  Christ. “Claw was your husband?” My throat burned with the words, with that fucked up sentence I’d spit out.

  “Before he was Claw. When he was just Tommy, my high school boyfriend.”

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  “Leo and Tommy had been buddies in school. Tommy knew Leo was smart, a little left of center, but smart. The three of us would hang out. Tommy and I eventually started fooling around.” She let out a heavy breath. “He was my bad boy. Made my parents crazy.”

  “I bet you liked that.”

  “I did.” Her lips curled. “After we graduated, we got married because it seemed like a great solution to so many problems. I could get out of my house and do what I wanted, which at the time was to stay out late and party and have sex with my boyfriend. And Tommy wanted to get out from under his alcoholic dad. We didn’t have much money, and things were tough, but we were both determined. Things were good for about two minutes.”

  Claw and Isi. The two of them teenagers in fucking love. Fucking. Waves of sour sloshed through my gut. His lips on her, his hands…

  No.

  “Then I got into a car accident, and we didn’t have insurance of any kind. My parents refused to help—the old you made your own bed, now lie in it thing was their favorite. Suddenly we had no car, couldn’t pay for my hospital or doctor bills. Of course, I lost my waitress job at Drake’s. Tommy was angry at the world. At everybody. He started hanging out with the Demon Seeds—a cousin of his is a member. He became a prospect, and we moved to Montana. He needed money to join, money for our expenses, and eventually, he got Leo involved in a liquor store robbery north of Meager.

  “But it went south, and Tommy was the one who got caught red-handed and sent to jail. Leo’s a quick thinker and quick on his feet—he disappeared, and I was glad he did. I didn’t want him to come back and get in trouble with the law. And I hated Tommy for involving him. Such a mess. Tommy told me he’d figured if Leo got caught he’d only get sent to the loony bin or get off on an insanity plea. But that didn’t happen. Arrogant fucker. He never thought he’d be the one to get caught.”

  “Were you ever going to tell me all this?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then you tell me I’m a closed fist,” I muttered, scoffing.

  “I should’ve told you all this sooner.”

  My brain rollercoastered over a winding, twisty track that I’d ridden over so many times before. A track that was disjointed, but now … now I knew what lay ahead. I gripped her chin. “Did he hurt you? Is he the one who—”

  Her jaw tightened.

  “Isi?”

  “Yes,” she whispered hoarsely.

  “Fuck!”

  “We were living in Montana. We were at a Demon Seed party after a weekend run, and I made the grave mistake of interrupting him when he was talking with his bros. I complained about having to carry drugs stuffed in tube socks and little plastic film canisters on the trip. The President said I had a mouth on me and that I should put my mouth to better use by sucking on his cock.”

  She took in a deep breath, and my heart fucking stopped.

  “Tommy was a nothing prospect always looking to score points with them. He could’ve offered me up to his President, to the whole club, fuck knows, to score those points.”

  “Isi—”

  “But he didn’t.” She held my hard gaze. “Tommy said, no, he’d take care of it like a man should. I didn’t know what that meant. We’d all had a lot to drink, and I thought he meant that he’d make sure I didn’t mouth off and be disrespectful ever again, to show that he was in control of his woman, to look good in front of everyone. We went home, started fooling around, and he tied me to our bed, blindfolded.”

  My breath burned in my lungs.

  “We…” She let out a deep breath, wrapping her arms around her knees. “We used to like to play with hot wax and stuff, so I thought … but that night … that night he used a cigarette instead. He said he had to, that it was my fault, that if I kept that shit up, he’d feed me to his Prez for a whole night of good times. Then he—”

  “He raped you.” I held her hard gaze. Didn’t flinch, didn’t look away. I held her horror of a memory that I’d made her relive. My heart beat hard in my chest and foul venom seared through me like never before.

  She met my gaze, her jaw firm. “Yes.”

  He had tried to crush her, but Isadora Dillon would not be crushed. She held fast. Sh
e ran faster.

  “The Demon Seeds have a saying—Demons never forgive, they only punish.” Her voice was steady but haunted as she re-cauterizing the wounds. “I used to roll my eyes at that, but that night, I believed it.”

  Heat roiled in my gut.

  “After that, he didn’t want me trying to sing anymore. Told me I was better off being a stripper so I could bring home real money like a few of the other old ladies at the club.”

  “He called you Sweet Songbird.”

  She let out a huff of air. “That was nice in the beginning, then it became a way to mock me. Be mean. We got into a huge fight over the stripper thing, and I told him to go fuck himself, and that’s when he started sleeping with the club groupies. I didn’t want to sing after all that anyhow. I kept to myself. Leo came to see us, and he figured it all out. He was furious.

  “Then, the robbery happened, and Tommy got arrested, went to jail. I got my divorce with the help of Uncle Walt and my cousin Ryan. Tommy had a good time in jail, though. He managed to do some Demon Seed dirty work and scored jumbo points with them. That’s when he got his hand ripped by a guy who was carrying a shank and became Claw.”

  “Why does he want to see Leo? Some kind of payback for him going to jail?”

  “Probably. But there’s the money. Tommy got arrested that night, but the money they’d stolen from the liquor store was never found.”

  “Leo ran off with it?”

  “I guess. I don’t know,” she replied. “I don’t want to know.”

  I wouldn’t have been surprised if Leo had set the whole damn robbery up to get his revenge on his sister’s husband.

  “Are you going to go after Claw now?” her voice snapped. “Show him who’s boss? Who’s the big man?”

  “Why? You don’t want me to hurt him?”

  She let out a dry laugh. “This is why this was a mistake, and I knew it. I knew better than to get involved with another biker.”